Illusory Illness and the Feverish Pursuit of Health

Schmidt Number: S-1632

On-line since: 15th March, 2012

I

ILLUSORY ILLNESS

In
the course of his life man finds himself set between two
powers. There is the current of events, the steady flow of
facts, around him that make the most varied impression on him.
Opposed to this stands man's own power within his inner being.
One need consider life but superficially to have it dawn upon
one that man must find a necessary balance between the forces
and facts that storm in from all sides, and what unfolds in his
inner life. When in his everyday life the human being has taken
in impression upon impression, then he yearns to be alone, to
collect and compose his soul. He feels that only in the right
balancing of outer and inner will he find salvation in
life.

A
penetrating aphorism of Goethe expresses this for the depths
and breadth of life, indeed, as the very riddle of being:

For
every force sweeps outward into space
To live and work; here, there and everywhere;
While on the other hand the teeming world
From every side confines and takes away!
Between the inner strife and outer conflict
The spirit hears a word slow comprehended:

From
powers that fetter every living being
That man is free who overcomes himself.

—
The Secrets

In
these last two lines of Goethe lies life-wisdom. To the inner
being of man that moves forward stormily, to this potentiality
in him that is continually developing and unfolding, there
stands opposed what approaches us from the outside. When we
overcome ourselves, we find a balance. These we can take as
themes for the considerations that will occupy us here. Both
themes belong together. First, we will devote ourselves to the
subject of illusory illness, and, as a necessary complement,
then consider the feverish pursuit of health.

Only in the course of our considerations can these words be
justified. They lead us into the spiritual streams of the
present and into that with which spiritual science confronts
them, with which spiritual science has to set itself as a task
against them.

In
connection with the words, “illusory illness,” men
think at first of the fact that someone really feels pain and
discomfort based on a more or less self-induced illness. Right,
here we have an area into which spiritual science, with its
cultural calling, must step. Important things depend on this
activity. Before we go into detail about what spiritual science
has to say by way of comment on this, let us observe some
pictures out of the life of the present. All the illustrative
material I shall present is taken from life.

On
one of my journeys (it was on the way from Rostock to Berlin)
there were two other persons in my compartment, a lady and a
gentlemen,, who soon began conversing. The gentleman behaved in
a remarkable way. After but a few words he laid himself out on
the seat and said that only so positioned could he bear living.
The lady recounted how she came from east of where they were
and had been to a Baltic spa. The day before she had been
struck with home-sickness and had decided to go home. Then she
burst into tears. Because of the lady's crying the gentleman
hit upon the idea of recounting the story of his health.

“I suffer from many illnesses and journey from sanitarium
to sanitarium without finding health.”

Whereupon the lady replied, “I, too, understand much
about illness. Many people in my homeland thank me for their
health and life.”

The
gentleman told of one of his numerous illnesses, whereupon the
lady, from her heart's wide knowledge, gave him a prescription
that the man wrote down. After a few minutes the second illness
was recounted, etc., until, beaming, be had written down
thirteen prescriptions. The gentleman had but one sorrow.

“We'll be arriving in Berlin at nine. Will it still be
possible to have the prescriptions filled?”

The
lady comforted him saying that it Would still be possible.
Strangely enough, it never occurred to the gentleman that the
lady herself was ill. The lady remarked further that yes, she
had much sympathy, and she counted up her own illnesses and
told of all the places to which she had gone to be healed. The
gentleman recommended a book by Lahmann to her. Thereupon she
told of her second illness and the second brochure was
recommended, until she had noted the titles of five or six
brochures she would buy the next day. Finally, she wrote down
Lahmann's address. Meanwhile they had arrived in Berlin. Each
had written down the other's recommendations and gone off
satisfied.

Whoever observed these people with an eye for the situation
under consideration soon saw that there was something not quite
right about the lady. As for the man, he only lacked the will
to be healthy. Had he summoned the will to be healthy, he would
have been in good health. Here we have something symptomatic of
what meets us frequently at present, and the scrutinizing
glance will be able to pass from this picture to another.

Were we to travel in mountainous country, we would see old
fortresses, decaying castles, etc., that remind us of old times
when striving for spirit strength existed or where outer power
ruled. These fortresses have fallen into ruins, but everywhere
in the vicinity of these monuments to power one can see
sanitaria, one near the other. This picture presented itself to
me recently in an area especially rich in these institutions,
when I found it necessary to stop at such a sanitarium for a
short time. The “inmates” were just taking their
midday meal. The conviction I gained was that of the hundreds
there, no one really needed the sanitarium life.

Let
us now move on to the more intimate pictures that we find in
the accounts of thoughtful present-day physicians. Fortunately,
there are some doctors who concern themselves also with the
soul in the body. I choose an example by a doctor who would
surely look upon everything theosophical as madness. His kind
are most surely those who are without doubt not to be
influenced by what spiritual science may have to say. Such a
prominent physician has recorded many different cases of people
such as those in the train I mentioned only as a specially
grotesque example. This physician was called to attend a girl
who showed all the symptoms of meningitis. But the physician
had a good clinical sense. When he was alone with her he
questioned her with such questions as were suitable under these
circumstances, but all his questions elicited no pertinent
answers. Finally, it came out that the young lady was to leave
school. In the following year, however, there were to be
especially interesting lectures that she wanted to hear. Since
all the family opposed her wish to remain in school, she fell
ill. The physician said, “I shall intervene that you may
still remain in school, but you must get up out of bed
immediately and come to the table.” This she did. After a
few minutes the young lady appeared at the table and was no
longer ill.

Let's take another example. Another physician, a skillful one
and well-known, for whom I have always had a certain regard,
had to perform a knee operation. The patient's brother was
present. During the operation the knee cracked, whereupon the
brother suffered excruciating pain. The operation went off
well, but the brother became ill. A whole year went by before
he was again well.

Thus one can see what power fantasy and perverted imagination
can have on the soul, and how, from out of the soul, imitations
of disease resembling a truly genuine disease picture can
arise. But the physician may not go too far in this. The one
just mentioned was very skillful. He did not allow himself to
be deceived by accepting that matters forever continue as they
first appear. A lady came to him one time who, since her
husband's death, was suffering unbearable pain in her knee. She
had been treated by many doctors who always came to the
conclusion that her sickness was associated with soul aspects,
had to do with the impact of her husband's death upon her. Not
that the physician of healthy outlook sought for some soul
aberration. He found that in this case, a large corn on the
heel was the provocation. After the operation he sent the lady
to convalesce at Gastein in order not to appear to expose his
colleagues too much.

So
now we see the situation illumined by a variety of pictures.
You see how strongly the illusion, the soul picture, can react
on the bodily organism. One could well say that in this
instance it is not a question of actual illness, but of
illusory illness. Whoever has come to the realization, however,
that everything corporeal is the expression of spirit, that
everything that meets our senses is an expression of the
spirit, will not take the matter so lightly. Even in seemingly
quite remote matters we find that it is often a question of
soul influences on the body. The illusion, which at the
beginning appears trivial and ridiculous, when it then turns
into pains, often leads to the beginning of an actual illness,
and often to further stages.

Such illusions are more than something to be disposed of with a
mere shrug of the shoulders. If we are to penetrate more deeply
into these occurrences, we must call up before the soul the
oft-presented picture of the nature and being of man. To
spiritual science, what the human being presents at first
glance is only an outer aspect. The physical body is a member
among other members of the human being that he has in common
with all other beings around him. Beyond the physical body he
has the body of etheric forces that penetrates the physical
body, as is true for every living being. This ether body
battles against the destruction of the physical body. The third
member is the astral body, the bearer of desire and apathy, joy
and sorrow, passion and sensual appetites, of the lowest drives
as well as of the highest ideals. This body man has in common
with the animal world. That whereby man is the crown of
creation, whereby he differentiates himself from all other
beings, is his “I,” his ego. We must consider these
four members as constituting the whole man.

We
must, however, be clear that all that makes itself visible to
our eyes derives from the spirit. There is no material thing
that does not have a spiritual basis.

Now
for a more frequently-used analogy. A child shows us some ice.
We say, “This is water in another form.”

The
child will then say, “You say that it is water but yet it
is ice.”

Whereupon we will say, “You do not know how water becomes
ice.”

So
it is for him who does not know that matter is condensed
spirit. For the student of spiritual science, however,
everything visible is derived from the same realm as the astral
body we carry in us. Etheric and physical body are successive
condensation products of the astral body. Here is another
picture: We have a mass of water and convert part of it into
ice. Thus we have ice in water. So it is that the etheric and
physical bodies are condensed out of the astral. The astral
body is the part that has retained its original form.

Now, when something or other comes upon us, be it health or
illness, we may then say that it is the expression of certain
forces that we see in the astral body. Of course, we are
speaking now only of illnesses that originate within, not of
those that arise through outer influences, such as a fractured
bone, an upset stomach, or a cut finger. We are speaking of
those diseased conditions that spring from the human being's
own nature, and we ask ourselves if there is not only an
enduring connection between the astral and physical bodies, but
also a more immediate connection between the inner soul events,
desire and pain, and the physical condition of our bodies. May
we say that in a measure, the outer health of the human being
depends upon these or those feelings that he suffers through,
these or those thoughts he experiences? We will be able herein
to cast light upon important occurrences that should be
valuable to people today.

The
human being of our time has lost the capacity to rouse himself
to the knowledge that the physical body is not his only body.
It is not a question of what the human being believes
theoretically, but it is a question of what the attitude in his
innermost soul is to the higher members of his being. In order
to penetrate into what is really involved, let us bring to mind
the quarrel between Wagner and Carl Vogt, that is, the Vogt who
wrote Blind Faith and Science. Wagner represented the
spiritual viewpoint, while Vogt saw in man only a
conglomeration of physical things, of atoms. For him, thoughts
were but a precipitation of the brain, a blue vapor that arose
from brain movements. At death, the substances ceased to
develop this blue vapor of thoughts. To this Wagner replied in
approximately such a way that one had to believe that if some
parents or other had eight children, it followed that the
parents' spirit divided itself into eight parts, one part going
to each of the children. Thus Wagner pictured the spirit to
himself in quite a material way, perhaps as many people do, as
a mist formation. But it is a question of swinging oneself up
with one's attitudes, impressions and feelings, in order really
to grasp the spirit. There may be many today who want none of
this materialism, yet they grasp the spirit in a material way.
Even many theosophists think of spirit as finely-divided
matter. Even in theosophy much timid materialism is hidden.

When it is impossible for someone to lift himself to spirit
heights, after awhile there appears for such a person an inner
desolation, an emptiness, a disbelief in anything that goes
beyond matter. When this takes hold of the feelings, when this
eats its way into all beliefs, into all feeling of the soul,
when the human being looks out into the world and no longer has
the capacity to be impressed by what is back of what he sees,
there comes to light what gradually leads him to the crassest
physical egoism in which his own body becomes evermore
important to him, thus placing him ever further from Goethe's
response:

“From powers that fetter every living being
That man is free who overcomes himself!”

At
this juncture we come to an important aspect of spiritual
science that will not be fully disclosed for some time unless
spiritual science succeeds in enabling man to conquer himself.
For if the human being continues to grasp with his intellect
only what his senses perceive, then, as a result, there would
follow for the human being's health something quite different
from what would result were the human being to perceive in
phenomena nothing but the spirit's sense expression.
Materialistic thinking and spiritual scientific thinking have a
great effect on the human being's inner life. Thus, the
question of the significance of materialistic thinking and of
spiritual scientific thinking have more than a theoretical
meaning. As for the results of materialistic and spiritual
scientific thinking, the one works to desolate, the other to
imbue inwardly. Now, for the meaning of these effects on the
human being let's take a simple example pertaining to sight.
One becomes nearsighted if, during the period of early
development, one lends oneself passively to impressions. If,
however, one gives oneself actively to the impressions of
things, then the eyes remain well. A man must develop
productive power from within. Whatever provides him with the
possibility of becoming the center of creativity and production
is healthy. Unless he becomes creative from within outwards,
his capacity for health will dry up and his whole being will be
compressed by the outer impressions. To all impressions from
the outside man must call up from his inner being a
counter-force. This must also be supplemented by the reverse in
that the human being must unfold an activity that shuts itself
off from the outside, becomes invisible from the outside.

There are two soul experiences in which you need to steep
yourselves. They will show you that the human being seeks an
inner abundance that streams out, and also a center for his
activity in the outer world. One should study these two feeling
directions, for they lead us deep into man's illnesses. The one
feeling is negative, anxiety; the other, positive, shame, but
which also means something negative. Let us assume that you are
confronting some event that stirs up anxiety and fear in you.
If you consider this not only from the materialistic
standpoint, but also include that of the astral body, then
becoming pale will appear as an expression of energy-streams in
the human being. Why does the soul affect the blood circulation
in this way? Because the soul strives to create a will-center
within itself in order to be able to function outwardly from
it. It is actually a gathering of the blood to the center in
order for it to be able to function outwardly from it. This is
meant more or less as a picture. In the case of shame, things
are reversed. We blush. The blood streams from within to the
periphery. The feeling of shame points to circumstances that we
would extinguish from visibility, because of which we would
extinguish our ego. The human being wants to make his ego
weaker and weaker so that it is no longer perceptible from the
outside. At this point he needs something in order to lose
himself, to dissolve into the All, into the World Soul, or, if
you will, into the environment. Thus, what we call shame is
loath to, indeed, does not want to, become visible from the
outside.

In
the expressions of shame and anxiety you have a polarity that
indicates significant conditions of the etheric and astral
bodies. These are two instances in which forces of the astral
body become outwardly visible. Anxiety and shame express
themselves in bodily conditions. If you reflect on this, you
will realize that all soul happenings can have an effect on the
happenings of the organism. This is true as taught by spiritual
science. There is a connection, even if the human being is at
first not conscious of it.

Let
us consider the phenomenon that the abstract thoughts of today
have the least imaginable effect on the organism. What we learn
in our abstract sciences has the least imaginable effect on our
body. Its principle is to perceive what we see, to transform
the perception into the intellectual concepts. This science
will not admit that the human being has inner creative wisdom,
that the soul can produce from out of itself something about
the world. While perceiving outwardly, the soul does not
confront outer impressions with an inner creative energy. The
scientist is not for discovering things out of himself. When we
reflect on how deeply rooted is the belief of the human being
in his own incapacity to learn out of himself, then we may
realize that this is the point of departure for the desolating
effect of a knowing that attaches itself only to the outer.

What remedy is there in this situation for humanity if inner
investigation for wisdom and truth, the inner creativity of the
spirit, is to companion outer science? The remedy is to be
found in true spiritual science. Herewith are the springs
opened through which the human being, out of himself, has the
capacity to develop his perception of what lies behind things.
Some people are oppressed by things. But whoever sees what no
outer perception can receive, whoever receives this, creates
the counterpart to outer perceptions that is necessary for the
complete healing of soul and body. This healing of the soul
cannot be brought about by abstract theories and thoughts.
These are too dull and inadequate. The effect is powerful,
however, when concept is transmitted into picture. How is this
to be understood? This can best be learned from thinking about
what is called evolution. You will hear it said that there were
at first the simplest of living beings that became ever more
complicated until man came to be. These are again only
abstract, dull, inadequate concepts. This thinking is to be
found in many theosophical teachings about evolution. They
begin with the logos and continue in purely abstract concepts
such as evolution, involution, etc. This is too weak in its
effect upon the organism. What lies in the soul will become
strong if one considers what has developed since the fourteenth
century. Here you have a picture, an imagination that is set
before the soul. Let me outline this again.

In
the past the pupil was told, “Look well at the plant and
then place the human being beside it and compare them. The head
may not be compared with the blossom, and the feet with the
root. (Even Darwin, the reformer of natural science, did not do
this.) The root corresponds to the head of the human being; he
is an upside-down plant. (Spiritual science has always said
this.) What the plant in its innocence allows to be kissed by
the sunbeams so that the new plant can be born therefrom, this
takes a reversed direction in man in his chastity directed
towards the central point of the earth. The animal stands in
the middle, between the two. The animal is turned halfway to
the plant.”

Plato, in his summing up, says about what lives in plant,
animal and human being, “The world soul is crucified on
the cross of the world body.” The world soul, which
streams through plant, animal and human being, is crucified on
the world body. Thus has the cross always been explained by
spiritual science.

Now
the pupil who was led forward to this significant image was
told, “You see how the human being has developed himself
from the dull consciousness of the plant, beyond the
consciousness of the animal and has found his
self-consciousness. In the sleeping human being we have a state
of being that has the same existence value as the plant.
Because the human being has permeated the pure, innocent plant
matter with his body of desires, he has risen higher, but, in a
certain sense, has descended lower. Otherwise, he would not
have been able to acquire his high ego consciousness. Now he
must again transform his astral nature. In the future the human
being will have an organ free of passion, like the flower's
chalice.”

It
was then pointed out to the pupil that a time would come when
the human being would bring forth his life free of passion.
This was presented in the Grail Schools in the image of the
Holy Grail. Here you have evolution presented not in thoughts,
but in a picture, in an imagination.

So
it would be possible to transmute into pictures what has been
given us only in abstract concepts. Thereby we would be
accomplishing much. When one allows this pregnant ideal of
evolution to rise before one, up into the development of the
imagination of the Holy Grail, then one has food and
nourishment for more than just one's power of judgment. Then,
not only does the rational understanding cling to it, but also
the full being of feeling twines around it. You tremble before
the great world-secret when you see the development of the
world in truth, and receive it in such imaginations. Then these
imaginations work lawfully upon the organism, harmonizing it.
Abstract thoughts are without effect.

These imaginations, however, work as health-bringing, inner
impulses. Imaginations bring about effects, and if these be
true world-pictures, imaginations, they work in a
health-bringing way. When the human being transforms what he
sees outwardly into pictures, then he frees himself from his
inner being. Then does the storm resolve itself into a harmony,
and he is able to overcome the power that binds all beings.
Then will he be able to relate himself to everything that comes
his way. He streams out. Through his feelings he grows into
union with the world. His inner self is widened to a spiritual
universe. In the moment when the human being has no possibility
of forming these inner imaginations, then all his forces stream
inwards and he clings fast to his ego.

This is the mysterious reason for what meets us in many of our
contemporaries. Human beings have forsaken religion's old form
and now they are turned back on themselves. They live ever more
in themselves, ever more only with themselves. The less
possibility the human being has of dissolving into the
universal world being, the more he perceives what happens in
his organism. This is the cause of false feelings of anxiety
and of illusions of illness. The image reacts out of the soul
upon the organism; healthy trends in the body are affected by
true images. False images, however, also leave their imprint,
giving rise to what meets us as soul disturbances, which later
become bodily disturbances. Here we have the true basis that
finally leads to illusory illness. Whoever closes himself off
from the great world relationships will not be able to dismiss
what comes toward him. On the other hand, it is impossible for
the one who has been impressed by the all-embracing
imaginations to let himself be deceived by false images. He
would not, for example, as is often the case, think he detected
an induction apparatus current pass through his body when no
current was present.

Every image that does not find a place in the overall general
nexus, that functions as a one-sided, everyday image, is at the
same time an illness-inducing image. It is only if the human
being always looks up from the single, the lone, to the great
secrets of the universe, that he thereby corrects what must be
corrected. For what really works upon the soul is a strong
force. What emerges in the course of cultural development is a
fact not to be overlooked. Today we limit ourselves to our
instincts about health. Let us consider tragedy from this point
of view. The ancient Greeks knew that what I am about to say is
true, that the human being watches tragedy, lives with its
suffering, is seized by its impressions, gripped by them, but
by the time it is over, he knows that the hero has won out over
the suffering and that the human being can overcome the
suffering of the world. It is through his living with suffering
and overcoming it that he becomes healthy. Turning one's gaze
inward makes for sickness. To express what lives within one in
an image outside makes for health. Thus it is that Aristotle
would have tragedy presented to show how the protagonist goes
through suffering and fear so that the human being is healed of
pain and fear.

This has far-reaching effects. The spiritual scientist can tell
you wherefore the ancient peoples brought fairy tale and legend
pictures before the soul of the human being. Pictures were
presented to him, pictures from which he should turn away his
inward gazing. The blood flowing in fairy tales is a healthy
educational means. Whoever can so look at myths will be able to
see much. When, for example, the human being outwardly sees
revenge in a picture, when he sees in outer picture what he
should give up, the result is that he overcomes it. Deep, deep
wisdom lies in the most bloodthirsty fairy tales. Our inner
harmony is disturbed if we forever stand gaping into our souls.
We become healthy in soul when we look into the All, into the
Cosmos. But one must know which images are needed. Consider a
melancholic person, an hypochondriac, who simply cannot free
himself from certain happenings. One would like to bring some
gaiety into his soul with gay music, etc., but one brings forth
the opposite, gloom, even if it does not appear so at the
moment. The deeper ground of his soul finds it flat and dreary,
even if he does not admit to this. Serious pictures are
necessary, even if they unnerve one at first.

Thus you see that a quite definite way of dealing with the soul
can arise. It is not possible to get at illusory illness
through a single means. It rests on the materialism of our
time, on the lack of creativity. Spurious, baseless anxiety,
all the feelings that express the distorted soul-balance in
melancholy, etc., are explained by a deeper observation of the
connection of things. Through this the means of healing are
also found. It would just never be possible for one who
continually fathomed the connection of things not to be
released from his ego. In cases where the ego is not released
there is some kind of provocation, and this is exaggerated. For
example, someone bumped his knee on the edge of the table. He
lacked the large, asserting ideas and thus he could not rid
himself of the pain. The pain grew worse. The doctor was called
and he said to do this and that. Then suddenly the person felt
the pain in the other knee. Then his elbow became painful,
etc., until finally he could no longer move his legs or hands
— all because he bumped his knee. There may be reasons
that the attention is directed to a particular point, but there
are also possibilities present that could bring about a
balance. The human being finds the balance in his ever more
difficult life only if he allows spiritual science to work upon
him. Then he will find himself armed against the cultural
influences.

We
can, however, also find outer causes for lack of creativity.
The facts speak loudly. Observe the animals that in our culture
are transplanted into captivity. They become sick, they who in
the outside world would never become sick. This arises because
of the strong influences upon man and animal that flow from the
outer environment. The animal cannot develop a counter-force
because his development is terminated. Through civilization the
human being also comes to decadence if he is unable to counter
outer influences with creative force. He must reshape and
transform the influences by inner activity. Then it is even
possible that these influences can be used by the human being
for higher development. The person who elaborates and creates a
radical theory of materialism is healthy because he creates
from within outwards. But the followers of the theory waste
away because they bring forth no creative force of their
own.

If
you read books of spiritual science, there is nothing that you
gain unless you inwardly recreate them for yourselves. Then
your activity becomes an inner cooperative creativity. If this
be not the case, then it is not studying of spiritual
scientific books as it is meant to be. It depends upon
developing the feeling for the forces that surge forward, the
forces that would receive the outer world. It depends upon
finding the balance between outer impressions and inner
creativity. Men must free themselves from the outer strife in
the world so that it does not make itself ever more noticeable
and oppressive. We must carry out the counter-thrust. The outer
impression must inwardly experience the counter-thrust. Then we
become free of it; otherwise, it will continue to turn us back
upon ourselves over and over again. If we be always watchful
only of our inner life, then there arises before our souls a
picture of suffering. If we achieve an expression of balance
between outer forces and inner forces that indefatigably would
go forward, then we amalgamate with the outer world.

So
do we acquaint ourselves in a deeper sense with illusory
illness as a phenomenon today. Our point of departure was that
spiritual science should be a means of healing so that the
human being is freed from himself and thus from every binding
power. For every binding power makes for illness. Only in this
way do we become clear about the deep core of Goethe's verse:

For
every force sweeps outward into space
To live and work; here, there and everywhere;
While on the other hand the teeming world
From every side confines and takes away!
Between the inner strife and outer conflict
The spirit hears a word slow comprehended:

From powers that fetter every living being
That man is free who overcomes himself.